Apple confirms pre-orders will begin at 8am on Friday. iPhone X release date, specs and price...

THE LONG AWAITED iPhone X is official, with the firm unveiling the 10th-anniversary device at its much-hyped Apple Event on Tuesday.

The iPhone X (pronounced iPhone 10) is the company's first smartphone to feature a full-screen display, as it sets its sights on the likes of the Galaxy Note 8. There's also an all-new 'Super Retina' resolution, a reinforced glass design and support for wireless charging, with the iPhone X arriving with support for the Qi charging standard.

We've rounded up everything we know about the iPhone X below, and will update this article as soon as we hear more. 

Release dateAs expected, the iPhone X won't be released at the same time as the new iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, which will start shipping on 22 September.

Instead, Apple has announced that iPhone X pre-orders will begin on 27 October at 8.01am, with shipping to begin 3 November.

PriceThe iPhone X will be made available in 64GB and 256GB configurations, which will fetch £999 and £1,149 in the UK, respectively. Pricing in the US starts at $999. 

Apple will also make the handset available through its iPhone Upgrade Program, with monthly payments starting at £56.45.

Naturally, Carphone Warehouse has been quick to announce that it'll be stocking the three new iPhones, and pre-registration has kicked off for the iPhone X. It has also started taking pre-orders for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. 

EE will be selling the iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, and has been quick to launch a registration page for interested customers. It will also be the only UK network to offer the Apple Watch 3. 

O2 will be ranging both the iPhone 8 and iPhone X when pre-orders begin on 15 September and 27 October, respectively. 

Sky Mobile has become the first UK network to reveal its pricing for the iPhone X. Pricing on Sky's Swap 24 tariff, which lets customers upgrade every two years, start at £42 per month with no upfront cost, unlimited texts and calls (for Sky customers) and 500MB data, while its Swap12 plan starts at £54 per month with a £99 upfront cost. If you're after more data, the firm's 1GB, 5GB and 10GB plans cost £47/£59, £52/£64 and £57/£69 per month, respectively. 

UK operator Three has been quick to announce that it will offer all three new iPhones but has yet to cough on pricing details. 

Vodafone has confirmed that it will offer the iPhone X, as well as both the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. Interested customers can register their interest here.

Virgin Mobile has confirmed that it will be selling the iPhone X, as well as Apple's iPhone 8 and 8 Plus handsets.

Specs- 5.8in Super Retina (2436x1125) OLED edge-to-edge display
- New 'all-glass' design with IP67 certification
- 143.6x70.9x7.7 mm, 179g
- Wireless charging support
- Apple A11 chip with Apple-designed GPU
- Face ID
- iOS 11 with improved Siri, P2P payments
- Vertical 12MP dual cameras with OIS, 7MP front-facing camera
- Support for LTE speeds up to 450Mbps
- Wireless charging/fast charging support
- Battery life quoted at 21 hours of talk time
- 64GB/256GB storage

Latest news
26/10/17: Apple has confirmed that iPhone X pre-orders will begin at 8.01am on Friday, and is advising buyers that the quickest way to order will be via it's official Apple Store app.

25/10/17: Apple has reportedly told suppliers to reduce the accuracy of the phone's flagship Face ID system in order to speed up production times. "People familiar with the situation" have said that although the downgrading of the feature is only slight, it won't be as good as the original specs, despite supplier Foxconn being given a two year lead time. "It's an aggressive design," the source said, "and it's a very aggressive schedule."

20/10/17: Apple's iPhone X production woes are coming to an end, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. In a note, seen by Apple Insider, Kuo claims that Apple's assembly yield rate for iPhone X has stabilised, adding that he expects the company to stockpile between 2 to 3 million units in before the device ships on 3 November. Kuo believes that production will ramp up in November, with shipments to grow rapidly in the first quarter of 2018. 

18/10/17: Apple has responded to a letter from Senator Al Franken, who raised concerns about the implications of Apple's new Face ID feature, in particular, customer security, third-party access to data and whether the tech could recognise a diverse set of faces. In its response, Apple says that that the chance of a random person unlocking your phone is one in a million (in comparison to one in 500,000 for Touch ID), adding that after five unsuccessful scans, a passcode is required to access your iPhone. 

The firm has also detailed how it stores Face ID biometrics, saying: "Face ID data, including mathematical representations of your face, is encrypted and only available to the Secure Enclave. This data never leaves the device. It is not sent to Apple, nor is it included in device backups. Face images captured during normal unlock operations aren't saved, but are instead immediately discarded once the mathematical representation is calculated for comparison to the enrolled Face ID data."

17/10/17: According to reports, Apple's manufacturer Foxconn recently began shipping the first round of iPhone Xs to various countries, but that first batch only includes 46,500 devices. This is likely due to issues holding up production of the TrueDepth camera, with some reports speculating that the biggest production challenges surround the dot projector, which projects more than 30,000 dots on the user's face to create a depth map to enable FaceID, animoji, and other features.

16/10/17: Apple's manufacturing partners Foxconn and TSMC are still struggling to produce enough TrueDepth camera sensors ahead of the iPhone X's launch next month. So says reports out of Japan, which claim that the firms can't get high enough yields of the 3D sensors required to make the TrueDepth camera work properly.

Jeff Pu, an analyst with Taipei-based Yuanta Investment Consulting, backed up the reports and said that he now expects Apple to produce 36 million iPhone X handsets this year, down from his previous 40 million estimation. 

13/10/17: The iPhone X comes with a new feature that will ensure nobody snoops on your notifications. Phone Arena reports that the phone will only show lock screen notifications with content when it knows that you are the one looking at the phone. If it's someone else, they will only see the notification source. This feature will also be coming to older devices, but given their lack of Face ID, users can choose for their iPhone to only show notifications with content once it has been unlocked.

12/10/17: The iPhone X isn't out for another month yet, but scams are already targeting Facebook, Instagram and YouTube users with the promise of a free smartphone. Security firm ZeroFOX says it found more than 500 fake social accounts that are using techniques including pushing and fame-farming to amass follows to later sell onto hackers.

9/10/17: Ming-Chi Kuo has re-affirmed previous comments that Apple will be lacking iPhone X stock in 2017 and said in a note that the so-called 'supercycle' - which refers to a large number of existing iPhone users upgrading - won't begin until next year. 

Kuo said: "The market generally refers to 2017 as the supercycle of the iPhone, but we think the real supercycle will be in 2018 for the following reasons: (1) TrueDepth Camera's production issues will be significantly addressed in 2018F; (2) new models launched in 2018F will enjoy a longer sales period than those unveiled in 2017; and (3) the product mix, specifications and designs of new iPhone models from 2018F will be more competitive. We estimate that for 2017, iPhone shipments will come in at 210-220mn units, which should grow to be 245-255mn units in 2018."

5/10/17: iDrop News has looked into its crystal ball and imagined what the future of the iPhone X might hold. A plus-sized model is the answer, and the website has shown off what this might look like in renders (below). Er, unsurprisingly, it looks like the iPhone X but bigger, and houses the same irritating notch at the top of the display. According to rumours, Apple will launch at least two OLED iPhones next year, measuring in at 5.85in and 6.46in, respectively.